


Becoming Flowers- SongFic

by TWDObsessive



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: (but at least they go together), Canon Universe, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Goodbyes, Hozier, Love, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Song- In a week, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 03:32:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11660760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TWDObsessive/pseuds/TWDObsessive
Summary: Many years have passed, but despite their expertise with walker elimination, Rick and Daryl find themselves both bitten.(I know it's MCD and most folks don't read it but they die together so there's that comfort.  Also it's my first SongFic)





	Becoming Flowers- SongFic

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on the song In a Week by Hozier. You can read the lyrics [ here ](https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&rlz=1CASMAE_enUS639US639&biw=1104&bih=623&q=Hozier-+In+a+Week+lyrics&oq=Hozier-+In+a+Week+lyrics&gs_l=psy-ab.3...17106.18526.0.18656.7.7.0.0.0.0.361.361.3-1.1.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..6.1.359...0i22i30k1.hIuixJd5-bA), or watch it on Youtube [ here ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oho-q53uiv4). 
> 
> I highly recommend you check out the song first to see how I've weaved it into the fic. Plus it's a great mellow song.  
> Warning- unbeta'd and first attempt at a songfic.

“Fuck.” 

Daryl paces back and forth cursing a blue streak and biting a nail. Gnats buzz in circles around them in the mid-summer heat and the sound of a raven in the distance is the only thing that breaks the silence once Daryl stops talking.

Rick stays silent, keeping his hand over the bite near his collarbone. He’s shaking but he isn’t so sure it’s from the fear. Hell, he isn’t even sure if he feels afraid. Having it finally be over after all this time? After all this loss? Shit, it’s probably time. He’s already survived way more than he had any right to. 

“Stop pacing, man. There’s nothing we can do,” Rick says softly, thinking about his children. They’ll be okay without him, of that he feels certain. Carl is probably around twenty-six by now and Judith is about the same age Carl was when the whole world went to shit. She could outrun a walker by the time she was six. Rick remembers the first time she killed one, taking it down by kicking out it’s knee and knifing it once it dropped. She hadn’t been more than four feet tall at the time. Rick smiles at the memory and the look on Carl’s face afterward. They are both grown, both adapted to life the way it is now. They both have suffered loss before and survived. They’ll survive this, too.

When Daryl finally stops pacing, he stares at Rick’s collarbone. His eyes are red-rimmed and watery. “I’m so fucking sorry, Rick. We’re in the middle of a goddamn field. I... shit, I didn’t expect these fuckers to be having a fucking walker meeting on the other side of a broke down tractor.”

“It’s okay, I was off guard, too,” Rick says, surprised to see how hard his lover was taking this.

Daryl rubs angrily at his eyes. “I can’t… I ain’t gonna be able to live without you. I can’t.” He rushes through the words. “Sound like a fucking 80’s power ballad for fuck’s sake, but I can’t. I need you,” Daryl says, his voice cracking on the last sentence.

“You won’t be without me,” Rick says calmly. This is the epitome of how focused Daryl always is on his lover and how little he cares for himself. “You’re bit, too,” Rick says pointing to Daryl’s shoulder. “So goddamn worried about me you don’t even feel it, do you?”

Daryl looks and runs his hands over the jagged wound and the blood that had started running down his arm. “Oh.” 

The rising sun is just now fully revealed as Daryl sits down in the damp grass. Rick sits next to him, comfortable in the feel of the earth underneath him, the way the grass gives way for him.

“Going out together,” Rick says. “That won’t be so bad.”

Daryl is looking up at the horizon his elbows resting on his knees. Rick can tell his anger has subsided and his heart rate has slowed. “What about the kids?” Daryl asks. He still calls them kids even though they’re grown.

“They’ll be fine. They’re strong, smart. They got Gabe and Rosita and Aaron. Plenty of others that would lay down and die for them.”

“They’ll never know what happened,” Daryl says as he looks over to Rick, much calmer now knowing that they are in this together.

“They’ll probably find us in a week. Follow our trail once we aren’t back.”

Daryl swats at a gnat that lands on his bloody shoulder and then winces at the pain. He takes a deep breath. “You know, I’m not afraid,” Daryl says. “We’re getting too old for this shit, anyway.”

Rick laughs and nods. He doesn’t often get access to mirrors, but he knows his salt and pepper has gone pure white. “Yes. Yes we are.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know,” Rick answers. “Just lay here. For years or for hours. Til we’re not here anymore.”

The sun is warm on Rick’s skin and he is growing tired, more so than he ever has been before. Tired of running, tired of fighting, tired of worrying. He’s just tired and submitting to it all is a peace he hasn’t known since before the apocalypse. 

“It’s a nice day to die if you have to,” Daryl says nodding at the mid-morning sun. Rick looks over at Daryl and fills his vision with the man he’d been side by side with for so many damn years now. He doesn’t remember life before Daryl. It was another time, worlds away. He leans over and catches Daryl’s lips in a soft kiss and they both submit to their exhaustion and lay down in the tall grass, hands brushing through hair and lips lingering against lips. 

Eventually Rick sits up and pulls the handcuffs from his back pocket. He puts one around his wrist, feeds the links of the chain through a broken piece of metal from the tractor and claps the other bracelet on Daryl’s wrist. He takes out his Python and lays it in the grass between them.

They watch the colors in the sky morph with the movement of the sun. “I love you,” Rick says.

“I love you, too.”

“Have for so long,” Rick continues. “You’re my home. Wherever we are is home. Wherever we’re going. I’ll be home with you.”

“You get real mushy when you’re dying, Rick,” Daryl laughed. 

“Sorry.”

“No. I like it. Don’t tell ya near enough with words that kinda stuff. You been my everything, y’know. Since the day we met, I’s drawn to you like buzzards is drawn to the dead.”

Rick chuckles, his head turned to face his lover. “That might be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Daryl Dixon.”

They were quiet again, watching the sun turn the sky less pink and more orange, listening to the breeze. Rick sees a fox peek up from behind a patch of tall grass, waiting for it’s dinner. You’ll know our taste soon enough, Rick thinks.

“We supposed to be this calm?” Daryl asks. “I feel… content.”

“When the worst thing happens, you don’t gotta worry about the worse thing happening anymore,” Rick answers. They hold hand, keeping their eyes on one another now, forgetting the sun and the wind and the damp grass beneath them.

“You gonna use your gun on me if I go first?” Daryl asks. His eyelids look heavy and he’s clearly fighting a powerful urge to just go to sleep.”

“Yes. You?”

“Yeah,” Daryl nods. Finally talking becomes too much work and they lay in the grass holding hands, sleepy eyelids desperate to see as much of one another as possible before the light goes out in them.

\-----------

Rick wakes when he feels the tugging and he sees Daryl sitting up and biting into Rick’s forearm. His lover’s eyes are vacant and his teeth feast on Rick’s flesh. The leader watches for a moment. Rick is drenched with sweat and has a headache. And he’s sad, so sad. He struggles to get the energy to reach for the Colt and he kisses what was once Daryl’s forehead, but is now just the pale, cool flesh of a walking corpse. 

He lines up their heads side by side, one last hug as Daryl digs his teeth into Rick's neck. And Rick holds the gun to his own temple so the bullet will go through his head first then Daryl’s. “I’ll see you at home,” he whispers in Daryl’s ear. And Rick pulls the trigger, their bodies collapsing in a heap together as the buzzards begin to circle above them and the fox creeps closer.

**Author's Note:**

> They're together now. Home.


End file.
